History
of the South Puget Sound

A Brief History of Ezra Meeker

A
True Pioneer

(Plaque outside the Meeker Mansion.
Click image for larger version)

Ezra
Meeker was Born on Dec 29, 1830 in Huntsville, Ohio and married his
childhood sweetheart, Eliza Jane Sumner in 1851. They
joined the more than 50,000 Oregon Trail "immigrants" in the
summer of 1852 and first settled in Kalama on the Columbia River.

They
moved to Puget Sound in 1853 and built a cabin on McNeill Island. After
the Indian War of 1855, however, Meeker joined his farther and
brother
in a mercantile venture in Steilacoom This venture tragically failed
when his brother Oliver was lost at sea coming back from California
with supplies
that consisted of all their money. Broke and destitute, with nothing
but an old blanket as a coat, Ezra used the last of his funds to make
improvements
to a squatter's claim in the Valley.

Meeker
cleared his own land and, to get money, hired himself out to his neighbors
as a laborer also. A man who was always fond of liquor,
he began
planting hops with his father, a crop that was destined to put the
Puyallup Valley on the map.

He
continued working for his neighbors, and became a hop broker, selling
their crop and the crop of his neighbors on the world market.
He traveled
to England four times in four years in the early 1880's, and he
and Eliza
Jane were even presented to Queen Victoria. He platted the town
of Puyallup in 1890, and he was the first mayor of the town.

The
failure of the hop fields in the Valley once again left Ezra broke
and penniless, but he kept his mansion. He tried various
ventures, most
of them losing more of his money, until he decided to start a
goal he had had for some time; the marking of the Oregon Trail.

At
75 years old, he outfitted an old covered wagon with two oxen and followed
the trail back east. President Teddy Roosevelt met
him in
Washington,
D.C. and promised Ezra he would ask Congress for money to mark
the trail.

Meeker
made four more trips over the Oregon Trail. Once more by wagon train,
by car, by rail and, in 1924, by airplane.

Eliza
Jane died in 1909, and Ezra finally sold the mansion. He passed away
on December 3, 1928, almost 98 years old.
It's no
wonder, whenever
the history of Puyallup or the Valley is looked into, the
name Ezra Meeker
comes up. He truly was a consistent and outstanding figure
of the Valley and our history.